Mr. Pettit
APUSH
TIMELINE OF CIVIL RIGHTS RELATED EVENTS, (1948-1978)
 July 28, 1948: President Truman signs Executive Order 9981.
 May 17, 1954: Brown v. Board of Education Topeka case where the Supreme Court
bans segregation in all public schools in the United States.
 August 1955: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy, is murdered for whistling at a
white woman.
 December 1, 1955: In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat
for a white man, causing a bus boycott by the Black community.

December 21, 1956: The Montgomery bus system desegregates.
 February 1957: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was established by
Martin Luther King, Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Charles K. Steele.
 September 1957: The Little Rock Central High school board votes on school
integration.
 February 1, 1960: Four black students from the North Carolina Agricultural and
Technical College in North Carolina stage a sit-in at a lunch counter where they are
refused service.
 May 1, 1961: Student volunteers called “freedom riders” begin testing state laws
prohibiting segregation on buses and railways stations.
 October 1, 1962: James Meredith enrolls at the University of Mississippi by using the
integration laws.
 April 16, 1963: Martin Luther King writes his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.
 May: During protests in Alabama, Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull”
Connor uses police dogs and fire hoses on black protesters.
 June 11, 1963: The head of the Mississippi NAACP is murdered outside his house.
 June 12, 1963: Governor Wallace stands in the schoolhouse door of the University of
Alabama before being forced by Kennedy to allow black students to enroll.
 August 28, 1963: 20,000 blacks and whites gather at the Lincoln Memorial to hear
speeches against racism; among them is Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream.”
 September 15, 1963: A Birmingham black church is bombed, resulting in the deaths of
4 black girls.
 January 23, 1964: A poll tax used to prevent blacks from voting is outlawed with the
24th Amendment.
 Summer 1964: The Mississippi Summer Freedom Project begins; civil rights workers
help blacks register to vote. 3 are killed and many black churches and homes are burned
in retaliation.
 July 1, 1964: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed, which forbid racial
discrimination.
 February 21, 1965: Malcolm X splits off from Elijah Muhammad’s Black Muslims and
their belief in integration and nonviolence; he is assassinated in retaliation.
 March 7, 1965: Martin Luther King Jr. leads a 54-mile march to support black voter
registration. They marched from Selma to Montgomery.
 August 10, 1965: A Voting Rights Act is approved.
 August 11-17, 1965: The Watts Riots occur with more than 100 riots occurred in Los
Angeles black suburbs resulting in looting, burning, and 34 deaths.
 September 24, 1965: Executive Order 11246 issued by Lyndon B. Johnson.
 October 1966: The Black Panthers are founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in
Oakland, California.
 June 12, 1967: Interracial marriage is ruled unconstitutional by Supreme Court.
 July 1967: More race riots occur in Detroit and Newark, NJ. They are the worst riots
in US history and result in 43 Detroit deaths.
 April 4, 1968: While outside his home, Martin Luther King Jr. is murdered by James
Earl Ray; riots broke out in 125 cities in response.
 April 11, 1968: Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
 1978: The Bakke v Regents of University of California decision outlaws fixed racial
quotas.
HOMEWORK:
Choose any 3 events from the above timeline. Click on their link in the timeline, and
write 3 brief summaries and reactions to each event. Summaries should be 1
paragraph in length and a MAXIMUM of 10 sentences each. Reactions should focus
on answering the question: What do you think was the most significant aspect of
each event?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
After discussing some of the early civil rights related events, complete the following
thought to best summarize the first half of the civil rights struggle in the U.S.A.
THROUGH THE SPRING OF 1965, THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT…